EVERY GAME is coming to XBLA

[sinha]

Xbox Live Arcade Sales Analysis, October 2009

For all new releases, we took a look at the Leaderboards each week to determine how well the game sold, and using the Major Nelson Top 10 list, we were also able to estimate the sales of some of the games. Here is a list of new games that came out in October, with their Leaderboard stats and estimates:

October Top 10 Lists:

 

The Big List

Also this month, we also took a look at a lot of older games – games that have come out this year, and the odd few from years prior. We can see some games that have kept quiet throughout the year still doing remarkably well – A Kingdom for Keflings, Geometry Wars 2, Banjo Kazooie, N+, Braid and Peggle continue to add over 1,000 players each week. Even the original Worms continues to add over 1,000 Leaderboard entries each week, despite the sequel being readily available.

Some games, like The Maw and Streets of Rage 2 still do reasonably well with nearly 500 copies each week. The Maw is a special case – it released 3 pieces of downloadable content for the game at 100 Microsoft Points each, with a surprisingly high attach rate for new players. Bubble Bobble also has two pieces of DLC at 240MSP each, and while they've only sold to 3% of the total user-base, they're doing well compared to the new players.

The majority of games however will sell around 100 or so copies a week, based on our data. Some of the worst cases, like Gel: Set & Match, Texas Cheat’em and Powerup Forever will only add 30 or so players a week, with some not even selling 100 copies over the month.

It’s a fascinating look at the so-called 'long tail' effect many publishers and developers believe about digital platforms. In fact, it may well be that the XBLA business, like a lot of digital businesses, is fairly hit driven. So the 'long tail' doesn't help a whole lot for many, but if you’re a small developer with a good game it can certainly help in the long run.